Iran: first impressions
I’ve always been curious about Iran. I’ve heard so much about it yet barely knew anything about it, so over Chinese New Year, I decided that this would be destination for a holiday sightseeing tour. The first reactions I got when I told people that I was going to Iran were: “Iran!?!” and “Are you out of your mind?”. Some even mistakenly mixed up Iraq and Iran and thought I was heading into a warzone. A warzone it definitely was not-it was one of the nicest countries I’ve been to with a wide range of landscapes, beautiful Islamic mosques, friendly and curious people, clean streets and rich Persian history.
The first thing I had to get used to was wearing a headscarf, also known as a hijab…all day long. As this is the norm in Iran, all the women on the plane coming from Dubai started putting their headscarves on just before we landed. It was a good thing that I was visiting Iran during winter time as it would have been arduous wearing a headscarf during 40 degree weather. The great thing about a headscarf was that I didn’t have to worry about bad hair days during this trip and it almost took awhile to re-adjust when I came back to Hong Kong! The day that I arrived in Iran was Revolution Day, which falls on February 10 or 11 each year. This revolution revolved around the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty by Khomeini, who became the country’s Supreme Leader in 1979. We were told that the whole city centre would be blocked off as everyone would be out on the streets, so we headed towards another city-Isfahan, before coming back to Tehran towards the end of the trip. But I did see live broadcasts of what was happening on the TVs at the airport in the midst of the wait for a landing visa and the streets were packed with masses of people waving Iran’s national flag. Before heading out of the airport, I got some local currency and was surprised at how much inflation the country is experiencing. I was told that one US dollar could get me around 8,000 Rials before I left but I got about 22,000 Rials at the airport (better rates if you’re out shopping in the bazaars though). With so many sanctions on Iran, the country experienced an annual inflation rate of a whooping 27% by the end of last year. I was a millionaire by the time I headed out of the airport.
We went for our first meal in Iran before the long bus ride to Isfahan via Kashan. The shopping complex was a large rest stop and reminded me of an arcade with shops of all sorts from food stores selling colourful spices, cashews, pistachios and the ubiquitous pistachio nougats to stores selling stuffed toys (Spongebob, Winnie the Pooh and Hello Kitty were the ones I spotted most often). Now the food place was a buffet and it was packed. Everyone had a huge plate of rice cooked with yellow saffron garnished with pomegranates in front of them and it can be found at every single meal. The rice is cooked until the water is completely absorbed so it tastes quite dry, but Iranians like to add butter to add a creamier texture to the rice. Another essential item is the flatbread. Not my favorite item as few were made fresh and there are always piles of them placed into plastic bags found at every meal. But the freshly made ones that come right out of the oven are much better! The third essential item at every meal is the tomato barley soup which was quite sour but filling and I loved eating it with rice. There was also tah-chin, a rice cake with a golden crust stuffed with marinated chicken which was colourful but quite dry as well. While the look of the doma wasn’t so appealing, it was my favorite and is essentially a stuffed vegetable, green pepper in this case, stuffed with rice, well seasoned with fresh herbs and simmered in a sweet and sour sauce. Another dish that you can’t judge by its appearance is the khoresh bademjan eggplant stew-eggplant is the potato of Iran and is often cooked with herbs and tomatoes until it turns into a thick stew. This was a great sampling of Iranian foods, but little did I know this would be the food I would find at every single meal during my time in Iran-I’m definitely spoiled by the variety of food I get to have living in Hong Kong!
More on Iran in the next few weeks as I go through my journey to traffic crazy Tehran, beautiful mosques in Isfahan, ancient Persian civilizations in Persepolis, and desert town Yazd!
I’ve always been curious about Iran. I’ve heard so much about it yet barely knew anything about it, so over Chinese New Year, I decided that this would be destination for a holiday sightseeing tour. The first reactions I got when I told people that I was going to Iran were: “Iran!?!” and “Are you out of your mind?”. Some even mistakenly mixed up Iraq and Iran and thought I was heading into a warzone. A warzone it definitely was not-it was one of the nicest countries I’ve been to with a wide range of landscapes, beautiful Islamic mosques, friendly and curious people, clean streets and rich Persian history.
The first thing I had to get used to was wearing a headscarf, also known as a hijab…all day long. As this is the norm in Iran, all the women on the plane coming from Dubai started putting their headscarves on just before we landed. It was a good thing that I was visiting Iran during winter time as it would have been arduous wearing a headscarf during 40 degree weather. The great thing about a headscarf was that I didn’t have to worry about bad hair days during this trip and it almost took awhile to re-adjust when I came back to Hong Kong! The day that I arrived in Iran was Revolution Day, which falls on February 10 or 11 each year. This revolution revolved around the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty by Khomeini, who became the country’s Supreme Leader in 1979. We were told that the whole city centre would be blocked off as everyone would be out on the streets, so we headed towards another city-Isfahan, before coming back to Tehran towards the end of the trip. But I did see live broadcasts of what was happening on the TVs at the airport in the midst of the wait for a landing visa and the streets were packed with masses of people waving Iran’s national flag. Before heading out of the airport, I got some local currency and was surprised at how much inflation the country is experiencing. I was told that one US dollar could get me around 8,000 Rials before I left but I got about 22,000 Rials at the airport (better rates if you’re out shopping in the bazaars though). With so many sanctions on Iran, the country experienced an annual inflation rate of a whooping 27% by the end of last year. I was a millionaire by the time I headed out of the airport.
We went for our first meal in Iran before the long bus ride to Isfahan via Kashan. The shopping complex was a large rest stop and reminded me of an arcade with shops of all sorts from food stores selling colourful spices, cashews, pistachios and the ubiquitous pistachio nougats to stores selling stuffed toys (Spongebob, Winnie the Pooh and Hello Kitty were the ones I spotted most often). Now the food place was a buffet and it was packed. Everyone had a huge plate of rice cooked with yellow saffron garnished with pomegranates in front of them and it can be found at every single meal. The rice is cooked until the water is completely absorbed so it tastes quite dry, but Iranians like to add butter to add a creamier texture to the rice. Another essential item is the flatbread. Not my favorite item as few were made fresh and there are always piles of them placed into plastic bags found at every meal. But the freshly made ones that come right out of the oven are much better! The third essential item at every meal is the tomato barley soup which was quite sour but filling and I loved eating it with rice. There was also tah-chin, a rice cake with a golden crust stuffed with marinated chicken which was colourful but quite dry as well. While the look of the doma wasn’t so appealing, it was my favorite and is essentially a stuffed vegetable, green pepper in this case, stuffed with rice, well seasoned with fresh herbs and simmered in a sweet and sour sauce. Another dish that you can’t judge by its appearance is the khoresh bademjan eggplant stew-eggplant is the potato of Iran and is often cooked with herbs and tomatoes until it turns into a thick stew. This was a great sampling of Iranian foods, but little did I know this would be the food I would find at every single meal during my time in Iran-I’m definitely spoiled by the variety of food I get to have living in Hong Kong!
More on Iran in the next few weeks as I go through my journey to traffic crazy Tehran, beautiful mosques in Isfahan, ancient Persian civilizations in Persepolis, and desert town Yazd!
